This invention relates to information network architecture, such as the Internet or an intranet architecture.
In an information network, such as the Internet, user""s computers, referred to as clients, request information from information-providers"" computers, referred to as servers, and the servers supply the requested information to the clients. In the World Wide Web (WWW), which is a de-facto standard for storing, finding, and transferring information on the Internet, the information is supplied in the form of pages. A page is a display screen-full of information expressed in textual, graphical, scriptural, and/or other format. A page comprises one or more information objects. An object is an information element that has its own network addressxe2x80x94preferably a unique single addressxe2x80x94, called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). For example, a page may comprise one or more text objects, one or more picture objects, and one or more script objects that are presented on the display screen in a layout defined by a frame object.
Normally, a single server provides an entire page, and often a plurality of pages of related information. The information is normally requested by clients and provided by the server object-by-object. When it receives a request for information from a client, the server uses the address contained in the request to find and retrieve the addressed object from its files of objects and sends it to the client. The search for the requested object constitutes a significant processing overhead on the server""s activities. A server can become swamped with requests for information. Under such a heavy load, the server typically gets bogged down with the searches for requested information, and its response time becomes slow.
To avoid overburdening a server, some service providers have the served information replicated in a plurality of servers and have different ones of the servers serve different requests, e.g., on a round-robin basis, thereby spreading the load of requests over multiple servers. However, this does nothing to lessen the processing overhead involved in searching for requested objects that each of the servers must perform.
This invention is directed to solving these and other problems and disadvantages of the prior art. According to the invention, an information networkxe2x80x94the Internet, for examplexe2x80x94uses a plurality of servers each one of which serves only a single object, so that a client must contact a plurality of servers in order to obtain a page of information that comprises a plurality of objects. Since each server serves only one object, it need not search for a requested object; rather, receipt of a request by the server can only mean a request for the one object, which the server retrieves and provides to the requester. Hence, the processing overhead involved in searching a plurality of objects for the requested object is eliminated. Because the server serves only the one simple function, the server can be a single, inexpensive, processor without much processing power. And because it stores and serves only the one object, the server""s memory can be relatively small and hence inexpensive. Yet from the viewpoint of the client, the information network and the manner of obtaining information therefrom have not changed. Hence, no change in operation and no additional processing burden are imposed on the client. This results in a simplified information network, and one whose architecture can easily be retrofitted into existing information networks.
According to one aspect of the invention, an information system comprises a plurality of servers each one of which serves a different only one information object to clients, and a client of the servers which responds to a request from a user for a page that comprises a plurality of information objects by obtaining each information object of the page from a different one of the servers.
According to another aspect of the invention, a server for a client-server information system that includes a plurality of servers and at least one client of the servers, comprises memory for storing a single information object of a page that comprise a plurality of information object, and responds to the request from the client by providing only the single stored information object to the client; the server does not provide any other object to any clients. The client therefore must obtain the plurality of information objects of the page from a plurality of the servers, and preferably must obtain a different only one page from each one of the plurality of the servers.
According to a further aspect of the invention, a method of obtaining a page of information in an information system that includes a client and a plurality of servers of the client, comprises the following steps. In response to a user""s request for a page that comprises a plurality of information objects, the client requests the plurality of information objects from the servers. And in response to the request, a plurality of the servers each provides a different only one of the requested information object to the client; none of the plurality of the servers provide any other information objects to any clients.
These and other advantages and features of the invention will become more apparent from the following description of an illustrative embodiment of the invention taken together with the drawing.